Faking Injuries, Hulk Hogan, Drawing Blood, & Double Minors

DC Sports Nexus ---- Friday, October 28, 2011

Faking Injuries, A Tradition As Old As Sports:

Athletes try to get any advantage they can to win. Faking injuries is just one of the many ways. Soccer players lay on the ground after faking an injury to waste time (Brazil Women's team). Football players fake injuries to stop the clock (NY Giants). Basketball players pretend to get punched in the face every time they have the ball (Lebron James). Baseball players even pretend to be hit by a pitch when it doesn't touch them (Jeter).

I think it would only be natural for select hockey players to do the same. Yes, the diving penalty is in place to prevent blatant Ginobli-like displays of flopping and faking, but this penalty can only go so far.

Double Minors - An Injury Faking Opportunity?

One of the new things I have learned after watching hockey this season was how a 2 minute minor penalty can become a 4 minute double minor. My understanding is that a double minor is called when a penalty like a high stick causes some kind of injury or laceration to a player.

A 2 minute power play is an advantage that leads to goals. Extend that to 4 minutes and the odds go up. Clearly it would be a great advantage to draw a double minor. This is where I feel the "faking" and "cheating" described above could come into play to drastically change a hockey game.

Let's say you get a high stick to the head which knocks you down. That is clearly high sticking, and is clearly not diving. So what happens if after the legit penalty call you fake an injury to try to get your opponent an extra 2 minutes in the box? Does post non-diving diving exist? Does a referee have any power to penalize or eject a player for faking the injury? Do players ever actually do this?

Wrestlemania VII - Super Stars & Stripes Forever:

The good old WWF. Sergeant Slaughter, in one of the craziest wrestling gimmicks ever decided that he was going to love Iraq at a time when the US was at war with Iraq. Clearly this upset Hulk Hogan and the millions of Hulkamaniacs across the country. This conflict could only be solved at the greatest event in sports, Wrestlemania VII.

During their main event match, Slaughter, as is tradition, picked up a chair and smashed Hogan with it square across the head. Hogan fell to the ground, grabbing his head in pain, and as the camera panned in you could see that Hogan was "busted wide open". Blood poured from his forehead, and he was clearly in serious pain...or was he?

What actually happened, once again as is tradition, was that Hogan pulled off what is known as blading, gigging, or drawing color. No, non-wrestling fans, it is not done with a blood capsule, it is real blood. He took a small blade that was concealed in his wristband and secretly slashed open his own forehead with the razor to make himself bleed. Quite the illusion! (It's still real to me damnit!) Check out the Youtube if you want to see more in depth how this trick works.

A Solid Way To Cheat, Maybe:

If you haven't figured out where I'm going with this yet, let me tell you. I am suggesting that hockey players could theoretically "blade" themselves after taking a stick to the face. They could conceal a small blade in their pads and draw blood while also drawing another 2 minute penalty. From what I have seen so far, Blood = Double Minor.

Even if a razor wouldn't work, a player could before a game cut their forehead with a razor a bunch of times. That way, during gameplay it would only take a small actual hit or fingernail scratch to re-open up the wound and draw blood. It seems like a stupid thing to do, but...people do stupid things to win all the time.

Would Someone Really Do That?

The "blading" example is kind of extreme, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone tried a version of it. Even if a player doesn't do that, as long as competition is involved, some player somewhere will be figuring out some way to fake an injury...

The Origins Of This Blog: Prior to this season I had only watched a handful of hockey games. I never really liked watching hockey and I pretty much hated the NHL. Coming in I knew the basics of the game from playing NHL '94 back in the day, but wasn't really aware of how the game really worked. I didn't know half the penalties, I didn't know that a few teams existed or didn't exist, and I was easily frustrated by many things that happened in the NHL. (Icing, Trapezoids, Biscuits, Twigs, Blue Jackets, Plus/Minus, Goons...AHHHH) However, when my beloved NBA was in danger of being locked out for an entire season, that was my cue to force myself to watch something that I previously semi-despised. That brings us to today. I am now a die hard Capitals fan...I now know a bit about hockey...but I still have a long way to go.